Overall Review Of Worldwide Chemical Production

In the U.S. there are 170 major chemical companies.They operate internationally with more than 2,800 facilities outside the U.S. and 1,700 foreign subsidiaries or affiliates operating. The U.S. chemical output is $750 billion a year. The U.S. industry records large trade surpluses and employs more than a million people in the United States alone. The chemical industry is also the second largest consumer of energy in manufacturing and spends over $5 billion annually on pollution abatement.

In Europe the chemical, plastics and rubber sectors are among the largest industrial sectors.Together they generate about 3.2 million jobs in more than 60,000 companies. Since 2000 the chemical sector alone has represented 2/3 of the entire manufacturing trade surplus of the EU.

in 2012 The chemical sector accounted for 12% of the EU manufacturing industry's added value. Europe remains world’s biggest chemical trading region with 43% of the world’s exports and 37%of the world’s imports, although the latest data shows that Asia is catching up with 34% of the exports and 37% of imports. Even so, Europe still has a trading surplus with all regions of the world except Japan and China where in 2011 there was a chemical trade balance. Europe’s trade surplus with the rest of the world today amounts to 41.7 billion Euros.

Over the 20 years between 1991 and 2011 the European Chemical industry saw its sales increase 295 billion Euros to 539 billion Euros a picture of constant growth. Despite this the European industry’s share of the world chemical market has fallen from 36% to 20%. This has resulted from the huge increase production and sales in the emerging markets like India and China. The data suggest that 95% of this impact is from China alone. In 2012 the data from the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC)shows that 5 European countries account for 71% of the EU's chemicals sales. These are Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands.

The chemical industry has shown rapid growth for more than fifty years.The fastest-growing areas have involved the manufacture of synthetic organic polymersused as plastics, fibres and elastomers. Historically and presently the chemical industry has been concentrated in three areas of the world, Western Europe, North America and Japan (the Triad). The European Community remains the largest producer area followed by the US and Japan.

The traditional dominance of chemical production by the Triad countries is being challenged by changes in feedstock availability and price, labour cost, energy cost, differential rates of economic growth and environmental pressures. Instrumental in the changing structure of the global chemical industry has been the growth in China, India, Korea, the Middle East, South East Asia, Nigeria, and Brazil.
Source From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_industry

Chemical Products' Catagory

The industry’s mоre than 10,000 firms prоduce mоre than 70,000 prоducts. In 2014, thе U.S. chemicals industry had sales оf almоst $800 billiоn and chemical expоrts were wоrth abоut $190 billiоn. Cоrrespоnding with its dimensiоn, the chemical industry is an impоrtant emplоyer. Nearly 800 thоusand peоple wоrk at chemical cоmpanies within the United States, including the pharmaceutical sectоr. With a rather huge amоunt оf investment spent fоr R&D (research and develоpment) purpоses, and strоng enfоrcement оf intellectual prоperty rights, оne-fifth оf all patents granted in the United States are chemistry-related.

Strоng prоduct identificatiоn and quality, access tо lоw-cоst natural gas, a highly educated wоrkfоrce, wоrld class research centers, prоtectiоn fоr intellectual prоperty, and a rоbust regulatоry system make the United States a cоmpetitive hоme fоr chemicals firms frоm acrоss the glоbe.

Industry’s Market Subsectоrs

Basic Chemicals: Thеsе include оrganic and inоrganic chеmicals, plastic resins, dyes and pigments. Plastic rеsins, in particular, have experienced significant grоwth as a replacement fоr traditiоnal materials in the autоmоtive, cоnstructiоn, and packaging end-use markets.

Specialty Chemicals: These include adhesives and sealants, water treatment chemicals, plastic additives, catalysts and cоatings. These chemicals are perfоrmance-оriented and typically include custоmer/technical servicing as an aspect оf their sales.

Agricultural Chemicals: These play a crucial rоle in the farm ecоnоmy and the fооd prоcessing sectоr. Thanks tо mоdern agriculture, farmers have dоubled the prоductiоn оf wоrld fооd supplies since 1960, tripled the оutput оf fооds like cооking оils and meats, and increased per capita fооd supplies in the develоping wоrld by 25 percent.

Pharmaceuticals: These include diagnоstics, prescriptiоn drugs, vaccines, vitamins, and оver-the-cоunter drugs fоr human and veterinary applicatiоns. This subsectоr alsо includes biоtechnоlоgy prоducts. Strategic investment in cоmpanies, facilities, and research and develоpment is especially impоrtant fоr this subsectоr.

Cоnsumer Prоducts: These include sоaps, detergents, and cleaners, as well as tоiletries and cоsmetics. While cоnsumer prоducts are an established segment оf the industry, technоlоgical innоvatiоn and prоduct develоpment are impоrtant due tо shоrt prоduct life cycles.

Source From www.uttc-usa.com/Chemical+Equipment

Chemical Industry2

Expansion and maturation

The late 19th century saw an explosion in both the quantity of production and the variety of chemicals that were manufactured. Large chemical industries also took shape in Germany and later in the United States.

Production of artificial manufactured fertilizer for agriculture was pioneered by Sir John Lawes at his purpose-built Rothamsted Research facility. In the 1840s he established large works near London for the manufacture of superphosphate of lime. Processes for the vulcanization of rubber were patented by Charles Goodyear in the US and Thomas Hancock in England in the 1840s. The first synthetic dye was discovered by William Henry Perkin in London. He partly transformed aniline into a crude mixture which, when extracted with alcohol, produced a substance with an intense purple colour. He also developed the first synthetic perfumes. However, it was German industry that quickly began to dominate the field of synthetic dyes. The three major firms BASF, Bayer and Hoechst produced several hundred different dyes, and by 1913, the German industry produced almost 90 percent of the world supply of dye stuffs and sold about 80 percent of their production abroad.

                                                  

                                           The Factories of German Firm, BASF in 1866

The petrochemical industry can be traced back to the oil works of James Young in Scotland and Abraham Pineo Gesner in Canada. The first plastic was invented by Alexander Parkes, an English metallurgist. In 1856, he patented Parkesine, a celluloid based on nitrocellulose treated with a variety of solvents. This material, exhibited at the 1862 London International Exhibition, anticipated many of the modern aesthetic and utility uses of plastics. The industrial production of soap from vegetable oils was started by William Lever and his brother James in 1885 in Lancashire based on a modern chemical process invented by William Hough Watson that used glycerin and vegetable oils.

By the 1920s, chemical firms consolidated into large conglomerates; IG Farben in Germany, Rhône-Poulenc in France and Imperial Chemical Industries in Britain. Dupont became a major chemicals firm in the early 20th century in America.

Currently chemical production is a high-tech industry, where the competitiveness is more based on capacity in investment on research and developement than the labour cost.

Source From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_industry

Chemical Industry

History

Although chemicals were made and used throughout history, the birth of the heavy chemical industry (production of chemicals in large quantities for a variety of uses) coincided with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution in general.

Industrial Revolution

One of the first chemicals to be produced in large amounts through industrial process was sulfuric acid. In 1736, the pharmacist Joshua Ward developed a process for its production that involved heating saltpeter and allowing the sulfur to oxidize and combine with water. It was the first practical production of sulfuric acid on a large scale. John Roebuck and Samuel Garbett were the first to establish a large-scale factory in Prestonpans in 1749, which used leaden condensing chambers for the manufacture of sulfuric acid.

In the early 18th century, cloth was bleached by treating it with stale urine or sour milk and exposing it to sunlight for long periods of time, which created a severe bottleneck in production. Sulfuric acid began to be used as a more efficient agent as well as lime by the middle of the century, but it was the discovery of bleaching powder by Charles Tennant that spurred the creation of the first great chemical industrial enterprise. His powder was made by reacting chlorine with dry slaked lime and proved to be a cheap and successful product. He opened a factory in St Rollox, north of Glasgow and production went from just 52 tons in 1799 to almost 10,000 tons just five years later.

Soda ash was used since ancient times in the production of glass, textile, soap, and paper, and the source of the potash had traditionally been wood ashes in Western Europe. By the 18th century, this source was becoming uneconomical due to deforestation, and the French Academy of Sciences offered a prize of 2400 livres for a method to produce alkali from sea salt (sodium chloride). The Leblanc process was patented in 1791 by Nicolas Leblanc who then built a Leblanc plant at Saint-Denis. He was denied his prize money because of the French Revolution.

However, it was in Britain that the Leblanc process really took off.William Losh built the first soda works in Britain at the Losh, Wilson and Bell works on the River Tyne in 1816, but it remained on a small scale due to large tariffs on salt production until 1824. When these tariffs were repealed, the British soda industry was able to rapidly expand. James Muspratt's chemical works in Liverpool and Charles Tennant's complex near Glasgow became the largest chemical production centres anywhere. By the 1870s, the British soda output of 200,000 tons annually exceeded that of all other nations in the world combined.

Earnest Solvay

These huge factories began to produce a greater diversity of chemicals as the Industrial Revolution matured. Originally, large quantities of alkaline waste were vented into the environment from the production of soda, provoking one of the first pieces of environmental legislation to be passed in 1863. This provided for close inspection of the factories and imposed heavy fines on those exceeding the limits on pollution. Methods were soon devised to make useful byproducts from the alkali.

The Solvay process was developed by the Belgian industrial chemist Ernest Solvay in 1861. In 1864, Solvay and his brother Alfred constructed a plant in the Belgian town of Charleroi and in 1874, they expanded into a larger plant in Nancy, France. The new process proved more economical and less polluting than the Leblanc method, and its use spread. In the same year, Ludwig Mond visited Solvay to acquire the rights to use his process, and he and John Brunner formed the firm of Brunner, Mond & Co., and built a Solvay plant at Winnington, England. Mond was instrumental in making the Solvay process a commercial success; he made several refinements between 1873 and 1880 that removed byproducts that could slow or halt the mass production of sodium carbonate through use of the process.

Chemical Process

In a scientific sense, a chemical process is a method or means of somehow changing one or more chemicals or chemical compounds. Such a chemical process can occur by itself or be caused by an outside force, and involves a chemical reaction of some sort. In an "engineering" sense, a chemical process is a method intended to be used in manufacturing or on an industrial scale (see Industrial process) to change the composition of chemical(s) or material(s), usually using technology similar or related to that used in chemical plants or the chemical industry.

Neither of these definitions is exact in the sense that one can always tell definitively what is a chemical process and what is not; they are practical definitions. There is also significant overlap in these two definition variations. Because of the inexactness of the definition, chemists and other scientists use the term "chemical process" only in a general sense or in the engineering sense. However, in the "process (engineering)" sense, the term "chemical process" is used extensively. The rest of the article will cover the engineering type of chemical process.

Although this type of chemical process may sometimes involve only one step, often multiple steps, referred to as unit operations, are involved. In a plant, each of the unit operations commonly occur in individual vessels or sections of the plant called units. Often, one or more chemical reactions are involved, but other ways of changing chemical (or material) composition may be used, such as mixing or separation processes. The process steps may be sequential in time or sequential in space along a stream of flowing or moving material; see Chemical plant. For a given amount of a feed (input) material or product (output) material, an expected amount of material can be determined at key steps in the process from empirical data and material balance calculations. These amounts can be scaled up or down to suit the desired capacity or operation of a particular chemical plant built for such a process. More than one chemical plant may use the same chemical process, each plant perhaps at differently scaled capacities. Chemical processes like distillation and crystallization go back to alchemy in Alexandria, Egypt.

Such chemical processes can be illustrated generally as block flow diagrams or in more detail as process flow diagrams. Block flow diagrams show the units as blocks and the streams flowing between them as connecting lines with arrowheads to show direction of flow.

In addition to chemical plants for producing chemicals, chemical processes with similar technology and equipment are also used in oil refining and other refineries, natural gas processing, polymer and pharmaceutical manufacturing, food processing, and water and wastewater treatment.

Source From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_process

Beginning in Bangladesh

The founding fathers of engineering education in the then East Pakistan took a forward looking decision in establishing the 1948 in the erstwhile Ahsanullah Engineering College. This was done in the fond hope that graduates form the department would play a pivotal role in industrializing the newly independent country. This was indeed a hold step considering the fact that the profession was yet to have wide acceptance outside the Anglo-American sphere of influence. As mentioned in the earlier section, even in Europe independent departments of Chemical Engineering were not yet popular. 

In this respect the academic initiative and intellectual courage demonstrated by Prof. M.A. Naser, Late Prof. A.Q. Chowdhury, Prof. Syed M. Mazharul Huque and others are indeed praiseworthy. However, while the academics were ready to produce graduates in this new and promising profession, industry was yet to appreciate the role of a Chemical Engineer. The first batch of Chemical Engineers graduated in 1952 and during the initial years only a few graduates were produced. Demand for such graduates from industry was virtually absent and industrial leaders with proper appreciation of the unique features of a Chemical Engineer's training were hard to come by. During the late fifties of the 20th century an important development in the field of engineering education in the country took place with a strong and meaningful academic linkage program between the Ahsanullah Engineering College (AEC) and US colleges of engineering. Under this program Dr. Olaf Bergelin, a renowned faculty from a highly ranked department of Chemical Engineering of the University of Delaware was assigned to help the department grow in stature. Dr. Bergelin came with a missionary spirit and helped develop an academic program comparable to current international standards and interacted with industry to explain the role of the profession as evidenced in industrialized countries. It was a time when natural gas-based industries (e.g. Urea) and paper industries were either being planned or implemented in the country. The ChE faculty at AEC took pains to impress upon the then industrial leaders the need to utilize the members of the new profession. However, the senior technical leaders of industry (largely in public sector), with training and experience in the older mode of running chemical and process plants with chemists and mechanical engineers, were employing engineers about whose training and purpose they were only vaguely familiar. This author, after graduating from the department in 1960 applied for the position of an Assistant Chemical Engineer in a sugar mill. He was asked to appear at an interview for the post of an Assistant Chemist. When he tried to explain the role of a Chemical Engineer to the interview board he was finally offered the position of an Assistant Mechanical Engineer! This personal anecdote typically demonstrates the that reigned during the early days of this profession in this country.

Source From www.banglajol.info/index.php/JCE/article/download/10174/7529

Chemical Engineering 2

How to Become One

Chemical engineers must have a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Employers also value practical experience, so cooperative engineering programs, in which students earn college credit for structured job experience, are valuable as well.

Education

Get the education you need: Find schools for Chemical Engineers near you!

Chemical engineers must have a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Programs usually take 4 years to complete and include classroom, laboratory, and field studies. High school students interested in studying chemical engineering will benefit from taking science courses, such as chemistry, physics, and biology. They also should take math courses, including algebra, trigonometry, and calculus.

At some universities, a student can opt to enroll in a 5-year program that leads to both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. A graduate degree, which may include a degree up to the Ph.D. level, allows an engineer to work in research and development or as a post secondary teacher.

Some colleges and universities offer cooperative programs where students gain practical experience while completing their education. Cooperative programs combine classroom study with practical work, permitting students to gain valuable experience and to finance part of their education.

Engineering programs should be accredited by ABET. ABET-accredited programs in chemical engineering include courses in chemistry, physics, and biology. These programs also include applying the sciences to the design, analysis, and control of chemical, physical, and biological processes.

Important Qualities

Analytical skills. Chemical engineers must be able to figure out why a particular design does not work as planned. They must be able to ask the right questions and then find answers that work.

Creativity. Chemical engineers must be able to explore new ways of applying engineering principles. They work to invent new materials, advanced manufacturing techniques, and new applications in chemical and biomedical engineering.

Ingenuity. Chemical engineers learn the broad concepts of chemical engineering, but their work requires them to apply those concepts to specific production problems.

Interpersonal skills. Chemical engineers must develop good working relationships with people in production because their role is to put scientific principles into practice in manufacturing industries.

Math skills. Chemical engineers use the principles of calculus and other advanced topics in mathematics for analysis, design, and troubleshooting in their work.

Problem-solving skills. In designing equipment and processes for manufacturing, these engineers strive to solve several problems at once, including such issues as workers’ safety and problems related to manufacturing and environmental protection. They must also be able to anticipate and identify problems to prevent losses for their employers, safeguard workers’ health, and prevent environmental damage.

Source From https://collegegrad.com/careers/chemical-engineers